Summary:
Jackson High School is the only public high school in Butts County, serving grades 9-12 with about 1,060 students in the Jackson, GA area. This single-school district means the school’s results directly shape the district’s overall profile, and parents should know that this is a high-poverty school (85.6% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch) facing notable challenges in math, attendance, and student retention.
Academically, the biggest concern is Algebra I. Only 22.8% of students scored proficient on the 2025-2026 EOC, a sharp drop from 31.2% the prior year and a 25-point gap versus the state average of 48.1%. This is the school’s weakest subject. In contrast, Biology (43.2% proficient) and U.S. History (36.5%) are much closer to state benchmarks (47.2% and 38.5%, respectively), showing real improvement year-over-year. The school’s state ranking has been volatile—48th percentile in 2025-2026, down from 50th in 2023-2024 but up from 39th in 2024-2025—suggesting performance swings with each cohort. Notably, the district’s Algebra I scores are higher than the school’s in both years, which is unusual since the school is the only high school in the district; this may warrant a closer look at how those numbers are reported.
Attendance and persistence are major red flags. Chronic absenteeism sits at 27.8%, well above the district (18.7%) and state (17.7%) averages—meaning more than one in four students misses significant school time. The dropout rate of 4.7% is nearly double the state’s 2.4%, and the graduation rate of 84.6% trails the state by 2.6 points. With per-student spending of $14,029 and a 15.9:1 student-teacher ratio, resources appear adequate. The path forward likely hinges on targeted math intervention, aggressive attendance outreach, and support for at-risk students to keep them on track to graduate.
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